I sat down this afternoon to read the February 5 issue of Sports Illustrated. This is something of a weekly ritual for me, and every week, the first thing I look for is Rick Reilly's column on the last page.
Reilly's column is my favorite part of the magazine. It always has something to do with sports, but usually from a different perspective from what we've all come to expect from sports columnists and reporters. It's often inspirational and frequently references the myriad way sports can be used to change lives for the better.
This week, Reilly took on the war in Iraq. The column isn't on the web yet, but I expect it will be available here on Monday. I thought it was worthy of being highlighted here.
Some excerpts:
You up for a challenge?
I'm going to tell you about five young Americans at the peak of their athletic lives. Your job is to guess how all five lives came together in the past month.
Reilly proceeds to tell the stories of five athletes -- Elizabeth Loncki, Brian Freeman, Shawn Falter, Luis Castillo, and Jason Corbett. If any of their names are familiar to you, it may be because of the way their lives came together in January: they were all killed in Iraq while serving in the US military.
Reilly concludes:
Athletes love teams, and when they run out of sports teams they sometimes join bigger teams, ones with Humvees for huddles and tombstones for trophies and coaches they've never met sending them into a hell they never imagined.
And they throw their whole selves into it anyway, because they are brave and disciplined and will chew through concrete to win the game.
But what if the game can't be won?
It's a sad state of affairs when a sports columnist has the guts to ask this question while the majority of our elected leaders aren't willing to pay it more than lip service.
I fully expect Reilly to be savaged by right-wingers who read SI. I have little doubt the idiotocracy that screeches endlessly about "winning" in Iraq will lead the charge. It would be nice if Reilly could get a little support from all of us; whether through the e-mail address posted in the print version of the magazine (reilly [at] siletters [dot] com) or through SI's letters department (letters [at] si [dot] timeinc [dot] com; include your full name, address, and telephone number). It would also be nice if every one of our elected leaders received copies of the column.
We've heard the comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam for years. And of course, by now we are all familiar with John Kerry's famous quote about the Vietnam War -- "How can you ask a man to be the last one to die for a mistake?" Well, Iraq is worse. It's not a mistake. Mistakes aren't made intentionally, with full-force of will and sheer disregard for reality. Iraq is about ego.
We need our leaders -- not just Russ Feingold -- to shout from the floor of the Senate and House, on every street corner, from every rooftop, anywhere they can draw an audience. We need to do the same.
How can you ask a person to be the last one to die for a failed president's ego? How could anyone have asked over 3,000 Americans and God-only-knows how many other innocents to die for Dumbya's self-aggrandizement?
We all know that the only way to "win" a war of choice is not to fight it in the first place. Whatever else you do in the coming week, please make sure you remind your representatives of that. Let's not have any more of our bravest sacrificed at the altar of Dumbya.